Moving On
by Mystery Muse MMX
Summary: X and Axl struggle with the void left by Zero's 'retirement'. preZero, postX era. mild YAOI.


For Fire Bolero, in return for the Blues MMPU save and in answer to a challenge from Rockman Elysium.

- - -

The last of the bird-like Mavericks attacking the Research Center was dispatched by X with a minimum of fuss; the legendary blue Hunter simply narrowed his eyes silently, took an instant to aim, and unleashed the most powerful charged shot he could muster. A devastating spiral of pink and blue plasma fire struck the Maverick head-on, melting its head and upper shoulders in seconds.

X turned away before the body even finished hitting the ground. His expression was blank and cold, his old blue armor stained and cracked in many places; Axl, who stood beside him, cringed.

Everybody else back at Hunter Base just saw the normal X, the heroic Reploid, the kind-hearted legend who never faltered in battle - X never allowed them to see anything else. But Axl, who fought beside him daily, knew better. Axl was close enough to see the truth.

X was exhausted- and X no longer cared. Not about enemies, not about friends, not about the world- not even about himself. He was a dead Reploid walking, more of a machine than he'd ever been, and when you looked in his eyes, there was nothing there but your own reflection looking back at you.

He was moving away from the battlefield now, trudging to the burned and bullet ridden front port of the Research Center. The sky above their heads was utterly black and starless.

Axl knew where X was going, and he gasped and quickly went to follow. "X! Wait up!"

X didn't wait, but Axl caught up to him anyway and paced his commander in anxious silence.

- - -

The power had failed to the building because of the Maverick attack. Normally, layers on layers of security would have been in place to stop intruders from reaching this precious room, but the core of the building had been breached, and those security doors and devices were destroyed or disabled.

Devastation was everywhere. Broken glass and small fires from laser exchanges were all about; X passed by the dead, human researchers and Reploid scientists alike, without a second glance.

But the contents of the final room at the end of the hall remained untouched until X stepped inside. Running on a secondary power line with redundancy after redundancy in place, tiny multicolored lights blinked on and off along the screens of diagnostic consoles that lined the walls; the air remained cool, the lights didn't flicker, and the sealed capsule in the center of the room gleamed and glittered like a precious jewel. No fire had reached here; no blood was spilled here. X, Axl, and the other Hunters had seen to that.

Zero remained oblivious, serene and beautiful behind the glass, not a hair out of place, armor smooth and polished, thick-lashed eyes closed, a slight hint of color in his cheeks and a ghost of a smile on his mouth; at peace at last, he was utterly relaxed, his power tempered by contentment.

Axl hurried in beside X, and watched as X moved forward to the capsule, staring into it deeply, reached out, and placed a hand on the thick, cold clear glass, leaving a bloody handprint. Axl shuddered; it seemed to him there was something deeply accusing about the gesture, as if X were silently condemning the capsule's occupant of causing the bloodshed outside.

_And I'm not sure he's wrong, either._ Axl squirmed at the thought.

But Axl abruptly realized _he_ was wrong when that hand of X's began to shake, when the blue Reploid's fingers shuddered and dug into the glass, trying to find a hold and having nothing to grab onto, and a small, dark sob wrenched out of his throat with more guilt and grief than anything Axl'd heard from X in months. And Axl startled.

That sound... was _sincere_.

"I... I'm a Reploid. We're supposed to have memories that live forever..." _We're supposed to be forever..._ "... but I started to forget what he looked like, Axl..." X's tone was nearly choking, and Axl knew that words that had been hidden deep in X for a long time were starting to emerge. "...I think I wanted to forget all about him." X suppressed a sob, sinking over the capsule and pressing his cheek against the glass helplessly. "... I think I tried to... But I can't... when I see... oh god... Zero..."

Axl hurried forward to X's side, laying a comforting hand on his back and struggling with a sudden sense of jealousy and impotence. _I've been here for months, I didn't do this stupid thing, but the minute you see Zero, you forget all about me!_ He knew it was unfair, he knew it was wrong, he knew all of it, but it didn't stop the feelings from coming, even if he'd grown up enough to keep the anger to himself instead of immediately turning it into a tantrum. If X was finally going to open up... that was what mattered, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

"I told myself I wasn't going to come back here, not ever. That after... after all we'd been through, that he could do this and not even tell me... not even b see fit to tell me he was going to do it /b ... after I went through all the effort of bringing him back after the second uprising... when I fought the Nightmares for him... when I worked so hard to find him at Giga City... I.. I was so angry. I was so _hurt_... if after all that I'd done for his sake, it could end up like this..."

X licked his lips, staring at Zero in his unresponsive silence in helpless longing and frustration.

Axl shivered, and tasted words on his lips that were dangerous, but he couldn't stop himself, didn't want to. "... He's always leaving you, X." And right then, just then, he let his jealousy wash through him; let it surge and crest and fill him up and then flow away. Yes, he had to admit it. He was deeply, terribly jealous of Zero. But the reason why... "He's hurt you like this over and over." And it wasn't about HIM, he hoped X understood, and it wasn't that he hated Zero, not really, but Zero was _hurting X_ and kept on doing it and that didn't make ANY sense, not ANY!

And Axl felt, suddenly, like he'd grown up, just in that instant. He couldn't explain it, but he felt a new energy, a surge of powerful will moving through his spine. If the door was open.. he was damn well going through it. He might never have another chance to reach X with his guard down like this...

"It sucks to have'ta go on when you lose people you care about. I lost everybody from Red Alert, y'know, just like you guys lost lots of your friends in the Uprisings, like Storm Eagle. _But... that's not good enough an excuse for you to stop caring about stuff, X_!"

X twisted, looking away from Zero and to the younger Reploid; his eyes were startled and guilty, and he opened his mouth and then closed it a few times. "I..."

"It's not all about you and Zero," Axl said quietly, facing X's gaze levelly, "I loved him too, y'know. He was a good guy and a kickass Hunter, but he could make some really dumb moves sometimes and this is way up there with the biggest stupid ever...He thought he was doing you a favor, I know, but really... he was just thinking about himself. But there's tons of other people in the world, y'know? Lots of other people," his hand was still on X's back, and he pressed his fingers down more firmly, "who care about what happens to you an' don't want to see you hurt. Sure, we aren't Zero, history, all that, I know... but... why do we _have_ to be before you feel something for us, too?"

X flushed a vivid red. "... Axl..."

Axl was blushing too, but differently, from the heat of what he was feeling moving through him. Almost like divine inspiration, words were coming to him from somewhere he didn't know. "You can still love him, but you gotta stop waiting for him... let him go, X. If you only focus on what you've lost then... then the grief will just freeze you up and... I know you're not like that. I know it! You gotta get back to being X again, not X who got dumped and hurts. You gotta let yourself live again, and feel good, and ... just... just FEEL!" He rubbed his hand against X's shoulderblade and before he quite caught himself he'd stroked down X's spine, and then he suddenly had his fingers curled on X's hip and... he wasn't letting go.

The blue Hunter seemed to freeze and catch his breath. Axl felt something move, small and subtle, between them, and hurried to catch it before it was lost; he dropped his other hand so that both were holding X's hips then, and he kept rubbing small circles. _Gotta break through_. "... How long has it been since you felt anything good...?"

X gave an aching sigh, trying to resist the touch and failing, feeling a slow warmth creeping into his thighs and abdomen from the contact. "... not since he..."

Axl groaned. "Not even on your own? Man, X... that's too much devotion." He moved an arm to fully encircle X's waist, and tugged the older Reploid up, back, away from the capsule. X went along, rising dizzily and gasping when he felt lips brush the back of his neck, the arm around his waist squeezing him tight while another rose past his shoulder. The Axl Bullet appeared in Axl's hand, the newgen rapidly shooting out the lights overhead and casting them in shadow before wrapping his other arm across X's chest as well. He also pulled X back with him, toward the door, fumbling at the wall until he found the control switch that would close the doors behind them. A soft hiss locked them inside as Axl finally located the key.

"...let me do this, okay? Even if it's just once. Please?"

X moaned softly, eyes closing, as Axl's mouth went to his shoulder.

Zero's body shone, motionless, behind inpenetrable glass.

- - -

They whispered quietly in the dark between kisses. Axl eased X to the floor slowly, then threw a leg over his waist and reached to remove X's helmet with shaky fingers. X lay still, letting Axl do as he pleased, guilt and desire clashing in his burning eyes. Zero was _right there_, but Zero was never going to touch him again...

He lifted his hands in turn to touch Axl's face, heart swelling and straining against the icy cage he'd built to protect himself from feeling.

Their eyes met, green to green; Axl laughed softly, nervously at nothing, and pressed his lips against X's lower lip, drawing it between his teeth, whimpering with joy to feel the warmth of X's artificial skin in his mouth. So long... he'd waited so long for X to notice him, for Zero's all-eclipsing shadow to recede enough that he could even be seen... but X was in so much pain it broke Axl's heart.

"I'm here for you, X," he drew his mouth away to whisper in the other Hunter's ear. "Use me. Get it all out. It's okay."

X gasped, throwing his arms around Axl's shoulders, lost sensations flashing through him, making him cry out. Memories blended, blurred... grief rose in him, his throat closed, and he let out a low, agonized sob, the touches of the younger Reploid bringing everything back to the surface. Months of unexpressed loneliness, longing and pain came roaring up, the cage around his feelings shattering vividly under Axl's warm, tender fingers. Losing Zero, again, had nearly destroyed him; he felt like a hollow ruin, shallow and lost in the world without his red terror, the beacon of blood and sarcasm and fire that had always kept him warm against the dark.

"... I want to be happy again, Axl..."

Axl touched his fingers to X's lips and gently pushed two inside, struggling not to let X's grief infect him but feeling his eyes growing hot and wet anyway; X sobbed softly, closing his mouth, letting his tongue and lips taste the alien flavor of the other's hand, tinted with the rough feel of gunpowder and discharged plasma.

_I'll never be able to beat you, will I, Zero?_ But it wasn't Axl's nature to despair. He shrugged it off simply; he loved X, and he always would, and serving X with all his heart, even under a shadow the size of the moon, was better than nothing. He smiled quietly, unhooking X's pelvic armor to lower his mouth softly to one of the naked circuit-lines exposed underneath.

X's hands were on his helmet, stroking him mindlessly, his hips rising in pleasure against Axl's mouth.

It was enough.


End file.
